things that we may not have thought through, we would appreciate feedback and ideas on that. as we move forward with legislation we would love specific support. we are reaching out to all the supervisors and trying to get sponsorship and support and different ways. if some of you have specific relationships with some of the supervisors, we can talk about who we don't yet have on the sponsorship list. those connections will be great. would plan to do a rally and press conference on the steps of city hall. who want to use as an opportunity to change the law and raise awareness. we want to organize seniors and people with disabilities in sros to say we demand and deserve better. so that people can also say this is not what should be

going on in our city. will like some of you to come out with us on that day, to the rally. maybe somebody representing the council should speak. testify before the land use committee that they. will be in touch with the mayor's office; presumably they will pass on to all of you when those things are happening. >> chair: jessica, i think the idea of including the mayor's disability council and the technical assistance guidelines is excellent. my colleagues are interested in that. before i -- have you been in contact with chief inspector bosky at the department of building inspection? she may be able to offer support as well. >> we have been working closely with rosemary bosky (sounds

like) since the beginning; she has been wonderful, helping us understand what is in the code, what should be in the code, making amendments to the legislation as well. >> thank you. >> thank you for your presentations. my head is swimming actually. i would like to say that what we are talking about here - most of my colleagues would agree - clean, affordable housing are human rights. in the city of san francisco we have resources to see to it that that is the fact. with that said, first i want to talk a moment about bedbugs. i have a friend in an sro on jones -- he went through quite

an ordeal to get management to respond; he call the department of public health. there were people in the building who were undocumented. others for whom images a second language and there were other cultural barriers to opening the door to someone who looks like an official for the government. there was a delay getting the exterminators in there, doing their job. i don't know if you are aware of this and is an effort is being made to educate the residents about the procedures necessary in order to eradicate the bugs. people will come and talk to you. >> (off mic) i know from experience since i had bedbugs in the past, i did

most of my research at the point when i was directly impacted. there are all sorts of barriers. there is misinformation that bedbugs are the problem of the poor. if you are alive and emit heat you can have them. we are having bedbug workshops that we do in hotels and in bigger events when we invite people to come to our offices. we are actually doing outreach to managers and to landlords as well. the department of public health has put out a new version of the director's rules and

regulations for control of bedbugs that went into effect in july. there are a lot of changes. it breaks down the responsibilities of landlords and property owners. it breaks down the responsibilities of the tenants. it breaks down the responsibilities of the certified pest control operator, which is a big improvement. it also has a timeline in chronological order. even the best case scenario bedbugs a very difficult to deal with. it takes a very long time. they don't physically get under your skin, but they are always in your mind. as this becomes something that more people are aware of, hopefully some of this that

information and misinformation will start to go away. we have been working closely with the department of public health on this. we have been working with the bedbug working group. we have seen a lot of progress, especially in what the rules and regulations are on paper right now. it is so new at this point, the changes, there will be a period, a learning curve to see how this will be carried out. we are monitoring the responses as well. >> great. >> chair: thank you. councilmember -- >> i'm sorry, i have a two-part question. i want to talk about the elevator situation. i understand the age of the elevators, the 100-year old elevator, the motor has to be taken out. pulleys and other parts.

it is extremely expensive, beyond the means of most building owners even. the process of moving people from upper floors the lower floors, while a lofty goal, seems to me it would take a long time. it is not something that can be easily done. you have existing tenants on the bottom floor. and so many disabled and seniors in one building that you start going floors up anyway. can something be done with tax breaks? something to get modern elevators in these buildings? >> tax breaks are not my specialty. >> (off mic)

not to pass the buck, by the financial and physical feasability, we have not seen this as a political issue. maybe we could organize around that. >> the councilmember suggestion of tax raises an interesting one. the technical challenge of replacing an existing elevator, the financial challenge of replacing it, we are talking about millions of dollars at times to do this type of work. it's complicated. >> thank you.

>> chair: thank you. i lived in a 100-year-old building for 15 years. the elevator was never broken down. if you have enforcement, if the elevator breaks down and penalties apply that might be of assistance. >> if i could comment chairperson. one of the comments of councilmember -- is that older elevators have parts that have to be custom fabricated in order to make a repair. you do have the circumstance sometimes where you have a property owner who wants to make the fix to keep the elevator functioning but it can be out of service for days, weeks, in some cases months. that has been our personal experience at the war memorial

building which has old elevators. we have two, a redundancy. we have had one elevator out for weeks at the time while parks are being fabricated. >> chair: thank you. councilmember -- followed by -- >> i wanted add as well, a mix of times where you have old elevators and property managers that want to do the right thing, and those that don't want to do the right thing. it is easy to say this will take a while to get it, so wait a week to even order the part. that is part of the effort to work with the department of buildings action and the department of public health to make sure the enforcement is tight.

if the landlord can say, here is my proof, here is a document. this part would not be in for two weeks versus oh yeah, i working on it. >> just really quickly i want to say too that there are some things that we can do. i can think of some buildings that do have elevators. another characteristic about sros, is that there are virtually - the vast majority of them have some sort of bar, restaurant, boutique, something going on on the ground floor. so the ground floor is a small area with either an elevator or staircase it goes up to the second floor where most of the rooms are. also where the desk clerk sits, at the top of the stairs.

we have seen problems when there is a working elevator of the door to the elevator on the bottom floor is out of service or bolted shut, or in some way not accessible for people. you still have to go up the first flight of stairs to go into the elevator and go up to the fifth floor. situations like that, there is room for improvement, not expensive. quicker to implement. >> i also want to add quickly in response to councilmember -- your question about, is it too lengthy process to try to move people? in a lot of sros, there is a lot of movement around. sometimes the landlord will do it on purpose, they won't let

someone stay long enough to get tenant rights. it is not a complete fix. it is something that could help a little bit. and obviously for all the reasons that people said, not to get everyone who needs to be on the first floor on the ground for but at least looking at moving people down closer to the bottom. >> chair: we are going to take a break in a few minutes. so if we could simplify our comments here about. >> thank you very much for coming. i appreciate your presentation today, and the residents. thank you for speaking. what i want to speak to, is a person with invisible his disabilities, a person with different challenges than a person with a wheelchair and mighty the first floor too.

i have a friend. they're having a hard time because they don't have visible disabilities. what do you guys do about that? i know we don't have the time. but maybe you can send us back some information. tell us about some steps that you go through to get help like that. and if they are giving the same opportunity as a person with a physical disability. >> i will say briefly that that is definitely something that we talked about in looking at things that people have access to services, getting good information, that the enforcement is good. we want to make sure that is true for every person with a disability. in looking at the enforcement, the idea came out early on and i'm sorry, i will go on too

long, having a separate enforcement time if the problem affects a senior or person with disability. how do people document whether the person had disabilities? that gets complicated. a lot of people get left out. those of things that we thought about. it sounds like it is an area where you have specific ideas. we can make sure that if people have invisible disabilities, and have needs, we want to hear them. >> the concept of reasonable accommodation under the fair housing amendment act. part of what the issues are in your recommendations, jessica, doing outreach with tenants

about the fair housing amendment act rights, and the opportunity to actually create a reasonable accommodation for the landlord, that would allow for submission of the medical documentation for disability. that is not unheard of. that takes care the fact of nonvisible disabilities. there is also the fear of retaliation, particularly in places where there is not enough control because of the lack of the city contract. we have a lot of success in city funded sros, and nonprofit organizations. that everybody can benefit from knowing what their civil rights are in terms of their housing. >> chair: thank you. cochair james, and program

administrator -- >> i have a two-part question. one part is about the desk clerks and having someone who listen to you if you have a complaint. the complaint goes to management? they know they are trained to de escalate situation? i don't know about the training that desk clerks would have at sros. >> i think that the short answer is, that depends. a lot of nonprofit housing providers have their own training and standards to what desk clerks are trained in.

yes, there are nonprofit-run sros, who have well-trained desk clerks. the vast majority are private buildings. they're not huge buildings that are very apparent. that could be 3-4 floors abouve a restaurant. that's just the person hired by the property manager, or have some sort of agreement for trade for work. and the function of that person is often to buzz people in or call 911. we are looking at raising the bar to where some of the training levels are at some of the nonprofit buildings.

we have technical problems with that. in chinatown for example the norm is not to have a desk clerk. people buzz each other in. they're different than the sros we see in mission or tenderloing. people preferred like that when we talk to them; they felt that they are a tighter community. we need to get more input from people who have lived in the buildings and get to hear the points of view. by a large there is a lot of room for improvement in the training level that desk clerks have. one more thing. in order to follow fair

housing laws and to make sure there is coverage through a 24-hour period, taking into consideration when people are sick and out for vacation, it becomes a large expense to a hotel; we anticipated that if we want to go forward with this, there will be a lot of pushback from building owners and people who will have to bear that cost in order to comply with those laws. >> yes, they build a community within themselves and they could monitor it themselves. a second thing is, the rent is outrageous for what you get. on the private ones, there is no subsidy allowed? how does that work, you know? to reduce the rent to like 30% of income. >> and private buildings there

are subsidies that exist. the reality is that, based on the way rent control is in san francisco, when the tenant moves out, the landlord can put the rental at any price they can get, it moves closer to market rate. when people first year about the kind of work that i do and talk about sros, they say it's great that you work with affordable housing. the first thing i say is, is not affordable. it's available housing stock. $700-$900 a month is not affordable housing. >> not what you get for an 8x10. you get better benefits in jail.

that is sad. that we do this to our fellow citizens. >> 30,000 people in san francisco. >> chair: we will go to ken stein. >> i want to personally thank the presenters today and to point out that even though we in this room and in this community are a bubble of disability and none of this surprises us, the reality is that this discussion is a quantum leap from anything the city has had. even in the most recent years, we were not able to get disability demographics. we always staff about accessibility, and they would say next time.

a number of people with disability in sros. the fact that we now have senior action network, the last 10 years would could not even get large print. oh yeah, they would see us there. there was never a demographic. if you don't have disability demographics you are not at the public policy planning table. i want to welcome jessica lehman to our community. she has been a leader in the alameda -- for many years. she's here totally on board with senior and disability action. it is huge. welcome. in the last survey we had from

hsa, was an astounding percentage of seniors that get out of the rooms per month, 3-4 times a month, 60-70%. an amazing number. something a revelation to me. in 2005-06, i was on a panel in tenderloin. there was an elderly chinese woman in the room. the third person to speak with the police officer. he said, how many people in this room can understand what i am saying? four people raised their hand. we had been certain there for 25 minutes. people are polite.

40% of seniors will not hear what you're saying. just because we are communicating does not mean people are hearing. the last thing, i urge you to bring this to the long-term care coordinating council. housing is not on the five-year plan. we asked them to be on it. what are the priorities for seniors and people with disabilities? sro housing needs to be there. i urge to reach out to that important planning table as well. >> chair: thank you everyone for your ongoing effort. we look forward to working with you to move the settings forward in the future. we are now adjourned for a 10 minute break. we will return. thank you.

>> >> >> >> chair: you are back with the mayor's disability council friday, november 16, 2012. thank you for rejoining us. our next agenda item is an action item. it is the co-chair election. for the position of co-chair, wendy james has successfully executed her leadership role for one year. her position is now up for a vote. we will accept nominations. offered by oneself were

nominated by one's colleagues. the first to cue in is co-chair james. >> co-chair: i would like to nominate myself and continue as co-chair for another year and continue to learn how to co-chair. >> (off mic) >> chair: okay. we have one nomination, and one second. do we have any further nominations for the co-chair position? >> yes. >> chair: roland? >> councilmember wong: i like to dominate idell wilson.

nominate. (correction) nominate (laughter) >> i would really say, i would be honored. i would like to third, for wendy to have a second year. >> chair: you are declining the

nomination? are there any further nominations? seeing none, okay, this is where we have to reserve the public comment. we have a motion on the floor. we have a second. do we have any public comment? check the bridge line, not working. seeing none, we have ballots passing around. >> (off mic) >> chair: all in favor for the re-election of co-chair james, fo